Glad this happened in a non-conference game before the play-offs started. Team B hits a three with 10 seconds left in the game to cut the lead to 3 points. I had checked at the previous dead ball and knew they were out of TOs. I'm trail, table side, in front of B's bench. As soon as the ball swishes, I hear an adult voice on the visitors' bench call TO. I blow the whistle, keeping in mind that they have none left. Unfortunately, I blew the whistle before turning around. When I did so, I saw the head coach ten feet down the bench from the spot the TO call came from. I went to my partners and after a little discussion, I realized that i was certain that the head coach had not asked for the TO. So we immediatley put the ball back in play. A was fouled, made neither throw, and B missed a three at the buzzer. Glad giving B a free clock stoppage didn't change the outcome of the game.

Moral of the story, turn and make sure it is the head coach asking for the time-out if it comes fromt the bench.


jb

Let me pose this one: Score is tied with time running out and there is a scrum for the ball in which A1 gains possession on the floor. There is 2 to 3 seconds left in the game and you hear the request from the bench behind you (A's bench). By the time you turn around to verify whether or not it was the head coach requesting the time out, several things can happen on the court. B1 can tie up A1, A1 can travel, time can expire, etc. Granted, your partner needs to help out here but do you still turn from the play and verify the request?

Nicely done. I had a brain freeze a few weeks ago on a TO.
Last seconds of the game B1 hits a 2 and is now down by
1. I'm at trail. A throws the ball in, and I then see
coach B standing giving the "timeout" signal (it was too
loud to hear him). I did not see him before the ball was
thrown in. I blow the whistle, point to B's bench, and A1
looks at me like I have 2 heads. Coach A gets up and starts
walking to the mid court line. The gym is near silent. At
that point I just wanted to be somewhere else, so before
coach A had a chance to speak I start my sales pitch:
"timeout before the throw in! A gets to run the line, B gets the time out!" I then got to explain to both coaches in a very civilized manner that the ball was picked up and
made it's way onto the court while I verified that the TO was being called by coach B. Coach A bought it, but to this day I have no idea when coach B actually started to request the TO. The kicker was after my explanation to coach A about how these things happen coach B wanted me to add 2 seconds to the clock, to "account for the delay between my granting the TO and the whistle being blown".
I was so relieved to have pulled it off I didn't mind
having to explain why he wasn't going to get more time.

A ended up winning by 3 after B's foul.

Just about every official I know including myself has gotten into some kind of trouble since they allowed coaches to call timeouts. It is a bad situation. I had to T up a coach last year because of it. At a dead ball, he came up screaming at us for not granting his TO because he said he had been calling for one for several minutes. I had vaguely heard some sort of request but the game was too hot to turn and find out who it was and what they wanted. It is one rule I wish that they would discard.

Dan
If I am not mistaken, doesn't B have to request the TO before A is OOB with ball, not just prior to throw in. I would think you should pass on this one. If B wants this TO, they should call it on the court as ball goes through net.

Dan
B has to request the TO before A is OOB with ball, not just prior to throw. I would think you should pass on this one. If B wants this TO, they should call it on the court as ball goes through net. If the coach was signalling and you didn't hear it, maybe you should have been looking for it. But once the ball was in and you hadn't seen it, too bad.

Also, by brain freeze did you mean that you had not anticipated the coach would request a TO after a made basket, thus did not notice it? Or did you mean that you should not have granted the TO, but once granted it was too late to change? After all was said and done, did you believe you did the right thing granting the TO?

Exactly, this is where I screwed up (I'm glad you weren't
there!). In fact I didn't see the TO request until the
ball was clearly thrown-in. I was anticipating B's
timeout, I didn't see it initially but my whistle reacted
by itself as soon as I did. As you probably know there's
occasionally some leeway given when a TO is called by the
team which just scored, I think that's why coach A didn't
have a sh1t fit. Or maybe because I T'ed him in the first
half? (He had it coming.)

Oh, forgot to say, I did absolutely the wrong thing to
grant this TO, seeing as how neither I nor my partner
saw it earlier. Having screwed up by blowing the whistle
I did *not* want to go to the coach at that point and say
"Geeze, sorry coach, my bad, now you gotta throw it in again
after I give B a TO to set up their defense."

[Edited by Dan_ref on Feb 5th, 2002 at 02:12 PM]

You are correct coach!
 

Once the ball is at the "thrower-in's" possession, the opposing team should not be granted a TO.

Unfortunately, to err is human. Last time I checked (looks at self), I am human.

Almost this exact thing (but a little worse) happened to me a few weeks ago.

With the score tied, the visiting team (let's call them Team B) calls <I>their last</I> timeout with 18 seconds left. After inbounding the ball, they attempt a shot which misses.

On the play several bodies go to the floor, but there is no foul. B1 jumps over a couple of players on the floor and retrieves the rebound with about 2-3 seconds left on the clock.

B1 has the ball, but is falling parallel to the floor -- it will be a travel when he hits (and probably the end of regulation as well) and he is also headed out of bounds.

<I>Someone</I> yells "timeout" and my partner (at lead) blows his whistle and points towards Team B's bench to indicate the timeout. At this time, Team A starts saying, "They don't have any timeouts" and Team B starts saying that they did not call timeout.

The clock is stopped with 0.7 seconds.

When I go to my partner, he has no idea who called the timeout (and neither do I as I never saw anyone signal timeout, nor lip read any player! :) ). So, we stand there for a L-O-N-G time (probably about two minutes [felt like 15]) discussing what the call is going to be.

In a nutshell, B1 had the ball when my partner blew his whistle, but we have no idea who called timeout (it could have been anyone).

So, what do you have???

After a few responses I'll post what we did and what I <I>would do</I> next time (like this is ever going to happen again!!!)

I have egg on my face. Likely since we cannot determine who requested the timeout, it becomes an inadvertant whistle. Since B1 had the ball, B gets to inbound. If coach A argues about the impending travel I explain that "Yes, B1 was about to travel, but time would have run out before that was called." Lets just hope that the clock runs out before anything else can happen. (Thanks for the brain tester.)

As soon as I hear a timeout, I find the ball. (I usually know where it is anyways.) I then see who called it. If the timeout that was requested is grantable, the whistles goes, my arm goes up, my eyes grab times left in the period, and I point to the team's bench, push the whistle out of my mouth, and come out with a "TIMEOUT". I don't care if a held ball occured, a basket was scored or a naked woman is in the stands - there is a timeout first.

Simple call really.

..Michael

If you or your partner cannot be 100% sure that the head coach of team B or a player on the court requested the timeout, then there is no timeout request.

Saying that, if there was a timeout request, and it was granted, then you have a timeout followed by a technical foul.

If no request occured, then it is an inadvertant whistle. B gets the ball OOB nearest where they had it last.

Edit: What should you do next time? Not have an inadvertant whistle.

..Michael

Inadvertent whistle, B's ball.

Well, you guys are right -- by rule it's an easy call, but in reality it's not that easy.

Sure, inadvertant whistle and B's ball.

But think about it for a minute.

B did not have any timeouts. You stopped the game with 0.7 seconds left, when it was clear that time would have expired by the time B1 landed on the floor. So now, because of your faux pas, you are going to give the ball to Team B <I>underneath their own basket</I> for a throw-in and last-second shot attempt!!

Of course, Team A wants (and probably deserves) to shoot two free throws (for a technical on Team B), but instead you are giving B the ball and an underserving opportunity to win the game.

Well, that's what we ended up doing -- and I said to my partner, "Pray that they don't make a shot and we go to overtime."

Thankfully they didn't.

What would I do next time?

I would tell the Team B coach that since he's saying that he didn't call timeout, time would have expired by the time that his player hit the floor (we're only talking 0.7 seconds here!) And I'd instruct the timer to start the clock and we'd go to overtime.

Is that supported by the rules? Probably not -- I think that the inadvertant whistle is what is correct by rule. But what is fair to the game? If Team B had hit a shot in that last 0.7 seconds it would have been OUR fault no doubts about it. They did not deserve to get another throw-in because they had no timeouts. Essentially we gave them a HUGE advantage by giving them a throw-in.

However, I doubt that <I>this</I> situation will ever happen to me again, but that's what I would do... In fact, I tried to convince the coaches to simply go to overtime, but they wouldn't go for it, so we ended up going with the inadvertant whistle ruling, but I didn't like it one bit.

Incidentally, I have never been booed as much as when I was handing the ball to Team B's thrower (the visiting team) after all the controversy. One of the home players knocked the ball out of the hands of a Team B player as soon as he got it and time expired, for which I am still very thankful!

Brad, good advice on the "what I would do next time". So
you T'ed B for an excessive TO, who on B did you charge
the TO to?

It's a TEAM technical --not charged to any individual, or as an indirect to the coach.

Brad:

Every sport in which officials use whistles have procedures for dealing with inadvertant whistles. Why? Because officials are human (no, really we are coaches!)

Whether or not that procedure is "fair" usually depends on which color uniform you wear. But it is still a good idea to go with what the rule book says, regardless of how "fair" it seems. At that point you have already made a mistake, best not to double it by trying to make up for the initial inadvertant whistle.

<I>Brad, good advice on the "what I would do next time". So
you T'ed B for an excessive TO, who on B did you charge
the TO to?</I>

We did not issue the technical. My partner did not know who had called timeout and I didn't see anyone call it either (I also didn't blow my whistle :) )...

We went with the inadvertant whistle option, which, by rule, is correct... It just really, really didn't feel right.

<I>Whether or not that procedure is "fair" usually depends on which color uniform you wear. But it is still a good idea to go with what the rule book says, regardless of how "fair" it seems. At that point you have already made a mistake, best not to double it by trying to make up for the initial inadvertant whistle.</I>

I understand what you are saying -- and you make very valid points. However, I still think that I would NOT do what I did next time.

At certain points in our career we encounter situations like this -- sometimes we have to do what is "right". It's happened to many officials, especially at the higher levels. I don't think that this means setting aside rules on a regular basis, or even in general. But sometimes I think that we'll have situations which call for a little injection of common sense versus being a black-and-white official.

I'll give you an example -- a veteran NCAA official (I'll exclude the name to protect the innocent, but you'd know who he was) talked about a D1 game that he had in which the teams were being very aggressive and physical. After several fouls/hard fouls/etc. he actually stopped the game and sent both teams to their benches.

He told the coaches that this was a "cool down" timeout and that they should come out with a "different" game.

Is that within the rules, not hardly. However, <I>it worked</I>.

Can you do that in every game? Of course not, and I think that this is the only time it happened to him, but it's an interesting story and makes a good point.

Do this near the end of game..
 

If you know that the gym is loud, and anticipate the possiblity of this happening. Talk to the coaches about being VERY vocal about calling timeout, because if you or any of your co-officials can't hear it, it won't be granted. Seems to have saved me a few times.

You learned something!!!!
 

jbduke,

You just made a mistake and in the end you will be better for that mistake. We are all expected to be perfect no matter how long you have been officiating. You know the secret, we all make them regardless of experience.

Pick yourself up and get back out there and do it again. I bet you will not be making that mistake again.

Look, I worked the other night with two officials that have hardly done 3 person games at all. Well not only did they do a pretty good job, I had a terrible game in the process. They made mistakes, we were not all on the same page at time, and it was on of the biggest rival for both teams. Many things appeared to go wrong, but we got through them. Emotions were high, we gave one T and we moved on. And the home team hit the winning bucket after winning most of the game but losing it with under a minute to go.

In the end I was disappointed with my performance, but the game was not changed by the many communication break downs that tend to happen by us on the floor.

I will have to move on, and so will you. We have to be like the NFL cornerbacks, maintain a short memory. We are only as good as the last call we made.

Peace

Here's the Davism on fair
 

Howler monkey: But that's not fair.

Davism: Coach, that's the rule. You want fair - call Judge Judy.

I didn't ask who the T was charged to (I know it's a TEAM
T), I asked who the TO was charged to (ie "Full timeout, 33
blue"). I misread Brad's response & thought he gave the
TO & the T.

Got it, thanks.

Re: You learned something!!!!
 

Rut,

As a long time official and college observer once told someone after they had a game like you did, CASH THE CHECK AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ONE!